The Goodbye Look

chapter 18

I drove south to Imperial Beach. The cashier of a drive-in restaurant told me how to find Conchita’s Cabins. “You wouldn’t want to stay in them, though,” she advised me.

I saw what she meant when I got there. It was a ruined place, as ancient-looking as an archeological digging. A sign on the office said: “One dollar per person. Children free.” The cabins were small stucco cubes that had taken a beating from the weather. The largest building, with “Beer and Dancing” inscribed across its front, had long since been boarded up.

The place was redeemed by a soft green cottonwood tree and its soft gray shade. I stood under it for a minute, waiting for somebody to discover me.

A heavy-bodied woman came out of one of the cabins. She wore a sleeveless dress which showed her large brown arms, and a red cloth on her head.

“Conchita?”

“I’m Mrs. Florence Williams. Conchita’s been dead for thirty years. Williams and I kept on with her name when we bought the cabins.” She looked around her as if she hadn’t really seen the place for a long time. “You wouldn’t think it, but these cabins were a real moneymaker during the war.”

“There’s a lot more competition now.”

“You’re telling me.” She joined me in the shadow of the tree. “What can I do for you? If you’re selling don’t even bother to open your mouth. I just lost my second-to-last roomer.” She made a farewell gesture toward the open door of the cabin.

“Randy Shepherd?”

She stepped away from me and looked me up and down. “You’re after him, eh? I figured somebody was, the way he took off and left his things. The only trouble is, they’re not worth much. They’re not worth ten per cent of the money he owes me.”

She was looking at me appraisingly, and I returned the look. “How much would that be, Mrs. Williams?”

“It adds up to hundreds of dollars, over the years. After my husband died, he talked me into investing money in his big treasure hunt. That was back around 1950, when he got out of the clink.”

“Treasure hunt?”

“For buried money,” she said. “Randy rented heavy equipment and dug up most of my place and half the county besides. This place has never been the same since, and neither have I. It was like a hurricane went through.”

“I’d like to buy a piece of that treasure hunt.”

She countered rapidly: “You can have my share for a hundred dollars, even.”

“With Randy Shepherd thrown in?”

“I don’t know about that.” The talk of money had brightened her dusty eyes. “This wouldn’t be blood money that we’re talking about?”

“I’m not planning to kill him.”

“Then what’s he so a-scared of? I never saw him scared like this before. How do I know you won’t kill him?”

I told her who I was and showed her my photostat. “Where has he gone, Mrs. Williams?”

“Let’s see the hundred dollars.”

I got two fifties out of my wallet and gave her one of them. “I’ll give you the other after I talk to Shepherd. Where can I find him?”

She pointed south along the road. “He’s on his way to the border. He’s on foot, and you can’t miss him. He only left here about twenty minutes ago.”

“What happened to his car?”

“He sold it to a parts dealer up the hike. That’s what makes me think he’s crossing over to Mexico. I know he’s done it before, he’s got friends to hide him.”

I started for my car. She followed me, moving with surprising speed.

“Don’t tell him I told you, will you? He’ll come back some dark night and take it out of my hide.”

“I won’t tell him, Mrs. Williams.”

With my road map on the seat beside me, I drove due south through farmland. I passed a field where Holstein cattle were grazing. Then the tomato fields began, spreading in every direction. The tomatoes had been harvested, but I could see a few hanging red and wrinkled on the withering vines.

When I had traveled about a mile and a half, the road took a jog and ran through low chaparral. I caught sight of Shepherd. He was tramping along quickly, almost loping, with a bedroll bouncing across his shoulders and a Mexican hat on his head. Not far ahead of him Tijuana sloped against the sky like a gorgeous junk heap.

Shepherd turned and saw my car. He began to run. He plunged off the road into the brush and reappeared in the dry channel of a river. He had lost his floppy Mexican hat but still had his bedroll.

I left my car and went after him. A rattlesnake buzzed at me from under an ocotillo, and focused my attention. When I looked for Shepherd again, he had disappeared.

Making as little noise as possible, and keeping my head down, I moved through the chaparral to the road which ran parallel with the border fence. The road map called it Monument Road. If Shepherd planned to cross the border, he would have to cross Monument Road first. I settled down in the ditch beside it, keeping an alternating watch in both directions.

I waited for nearly an hour. The birds in the brush got used to me, and the insects became familiar. The sun moved very slowly down the sky. I kept looking one way and then the other, like a spectator at a languid tennis match.

When Shepherd made his move, it was far from languid. He came out of the brush about two hundred yards west of me, scuttled across the road with his bedroll bouncing, and headed up the slope toward the high wire fence that marked the border.

The ground between the road and the fence had been cleared. I cut across it and caught Shepherd before he went over. He turned with his back to the fence and said between hard breaths:

“You stay away from me. I’ll cut your gizzard.”

A knife blade stuck out of his fist. On the hillside beyond the fence a group of small boys and girls appeared as if they had sprouted from the earth.

“Drop the knife,” I said a little wearily. “We’re attracting a lot of attention.”

I pointed up the hill toward the children. Some of them pointed back at me. Some waved. Shepherd was tempted to look, and turned his head a little to one side.

I moved hard on his knife arm and put an armlock on it which forced him to drop the knife. I picked it up and closed it and tossed it over the fence into Mexico. One of the little boys came scrambling down the hill for it.

Further up the hill, where the houses began, an invisible musician began to play bullfight music on a trumpet. I felt as if Mexico was laughing at me. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

Shepherd was almost crying. “I’m not going back to a bum murder rap. You put me behind the walls again, it’ll kill me.”

“I don’t think you killed Jean Trask.”

He gave me an astonished look, which quickly faded. “You’re just saying that.”

“No. Let’s get out of here, Randy. You don’t want the border patrol to pick you up. We’ll go some place where we can talk.”

“Talk about what?”

“I’m ready to make a deal with you.”

“Not me. I allus get the short end of the deals.”

He had the cynicism of a small-time thief. I was getting impatient with him.

“Move, con.”

I took him by the arm and walked him down the slope toward the road. A child’s voice nearly as high as a whistle called to us from Mexico above the sound of the trumpet:

“Adios.”